Packers, Steelers, Cowboys, Patriots lead in social media space

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By Austin Karp, Correspondent

February 27, 2012

The Green Bay Packers, Pittsburgh Steelers, Dallas Cowboys and New England Patriots are the NFL’s most popular teams online and in the social media space, according to an examination of teams’ website traffic and the number of Facebook likes and Twitter followers gained from August through December.

According to data from comScore, the Packers averaged nearly 1.25 million unique visitors per month during the measured period, tops among all clubs. The Cowboys ranked second with 1.17 million, followed by the Steelers with 1.11 million. Those were the only teams to average more than 1 million unique visitors per month during the five-month period.

But driving traffic to a team’s website is not the sole focus for clubs in today’s online landscape. The Atlanta Falcons, for example, made a significant social media push this past season. The Falcons ranked near the bottom of the league heading into the season in terms of Facebook likes and finished with just under 648,000. That ranked the club fourth in Facebook likes gained during the regular season.

The Cowboys led all clubs going into the training-camp period with about 3.25 million Facebook likes and remained at the top at the end of the regular season, reaching 4.16 million. The Steelers ranked second with 3.77 million likes, but they grew by more than 1 million during the course of the season, the only club to do so.

While not cracking the top five in team site traffic or Facebook likes, the New York Jets topped all teams in Twitter followers during the regular season. The club finished the season with just over 286,000 followers, ahead of just over 257,000 for the Cowboys.